


we're really bad eggs (drink up, me 'earties)

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 16:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11604159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: “Your compass is broken,” he calls, and Tony leans over the railing to look at Steve before frowning.Steve watches him as he comes down the steps, and Steve holds out the compass for Tony to take, which is uncomfortable, since his hands are tied together in front of him.“It’s not broken, you just don’t know how to use it,” Tony says as he approaches. “How the hell did you get-”He stops, staring at the compass.





	we're really bad eggs (drink up, me 'earties)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic a few years ago and am posting it on A03 on request :) enjoy!

Steve toys with the compass for a while before giving up on it entirely.

“Your compass is broken,” he calls, and Tony leans over the railing to look at Steve before frowning.

Steve watches him as he comes down the steps, and Steve holds out the compass for Tony to take, which is uncomfortable, since his hands are tied together in front of him.

“It’s not broken, you just don’t know how to use it,” Tony says as he approaches. “How the hell did you get-”

He stops, staring.

“I picked your pocket,” Steve says, and when Tony still doesn’t say anything, Steve continues, “I wasn’t always a commodore, Captain Stark-”

“What’d you do to it,” Tony asks, sounding like he’s in the middle of being strangled.

Steve raises his eyebrows at him. “Excuse me?”

“What did you do?”

“It was like this when I took it,” Steve says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Tony croaks, and then he clears his throat. “Fine. Just-”

He takes several steps to the side, and Steve glances down to see the arrow track his movements, moving to where Tony steps.

“Oh, it follows you,” Steve realizes. “What the hell is that useful for?”

“Doesn’t- follow me,” Tony grumbles, wrenching the compass out of Steve’s hands. The arrow pinwheels around, and Steve doesn’t see where it settles, since Tony shoves it into his breeches before it does.

Later, Steve will think back on this and think that’s how it started. And even later than that, he’ll look back again and realize that it started a while before this, at the market.

Later, it will turn into a story, one that gets bigger and bolder whenever it gets retold. It has a name, this story, but it changes continent to continent, and Steve always thinks of it as their story anyway, the story of Steve and Tony.

Their story starts days before Steve gets his hands on the compass, and weeks before he realizes what the compass meant.

It starts like this: 

Steve chases down a man in the market after he spots him stealing a crate of apples. The man puts up a good chase, almost loses Steve a few times, and Steve has almost given up when he hears the man’s voice, recognizing it from when he had yelled back clever retorts to Steve’s orders to stop.

“C’mon, that guy was fast, you have to be faster, hand them out- hey, one each, we don’t have enough for you to sneak more, you know how much I had to run to get these? Do you? Because it was a lot, okay, so much running-”

“Could I take two, Cap’n Tony?”

“That’s Captain Stark to you,” the man says, and Steve rounds the corner to stop, shock-still, as he watches the man dole out apple after apple to a bunch of kids. Street kids, it looks like- they’re familiar under all the dirt, Steve’s sure he’s seen their faces around the marketplace before, begging for food if not stealing it.

“My sister’s got a bad leg,” the boy continues like the man hadn’t spoken. “She can’t get here to get apples. I gotta take one back to her.”

The man- Captain Stark- narrows his eyes at him, but wordlessly holds out the box. “One more,” he says, and fends off the kid’s hug. “Yeah, no, I don’t do that. You want hugs, hug each other, you want food, come to me.”

“Thanks, Cap’n Tony!”

“Stark,” Tony says, but his eyes are soft and there’s no bite in his words. He’s straightening up, hat tucked under one arm, when one of the kids in the group squeaks, eyes locked on Steve.

“SCATTER,” she shrieks, and most of the kids don’t even stop to ask questions, just start sprinting in different directions, apples stuffed in their mouths or shoved in their pockets.

Tony’s slower to react, whirling around to see Steve, eyes going wide as he recognizes him. “Shit,” he blurts, and then he’s off into the nearest alleyway.

Steve ignores the kids- he doesn’t haul them in for little things like this, and besides, he knows what it’s like to get hungry enough to nick something out of the market- and pelts after Tony.

He’s struggling up the side of a small house when Steve gets there, and he’s almost on the roof when Steve catches up to him, dragging him down by his breeches.

Tony hits the ground with a pained noise, squinting up at Steve through the dirt that clouded up on impact. “Hello again.”

“Hello,” Steve says. There’s a moment where he thinks there’s a blue light peeking out from the open collar of Tony’s cotton shirt, but then Tony’s squirming and the cotton blots out the part Steve thought was shining.

He shakes Tony’s hand after he ties them together with rope- not his best work, but he’s in a hurry. “Wish I could say it’s nice to meet you, Captain Stark.”

Tony’s eyebrow quirks. “You have me at a disadvantage. You seem to know my name, but sadly, I don’t know yours.”

“Commodore Rogers.”

A flash of teeth, cleaner than any set of teeth Steve’s seen on any pirate before. “Lovely to meet you, Commodore.”

“Lovely?”

“Any morning where I have a gorgeous man on top of me is a lovely one.”

Steve feels it when the tips of his ears flush red. He scrambles hastily to get off Tony and haul him to his feet.

Tony laughs the whole way through this, and offers his tied hands to Steve when they’re both straightening up. “Well then! Lead the way, my lovely Commodore.”

 

 

 

 

 

Steve doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disgruntled when Tony flirts with nearly everyone he meets as they put him in a cell.

“I have heard of you,” Thor says as they’re putting his shackles on. “Stark, yes?”

“Captain Stark,” Tony corrects him.

Thor barks a laugh. “Yes.”

“What’ve you heard, blondie?”

Thor stands back to let Steve fiddle the shackles into place. He’s grinning, but Steve supposes he would grin at a prisoner whose crime was stealing a crate of apples to feed a pack of kids. “That you won’t be here for long.”

“I’m never anywhere for long,” Tony tells him, looking all too at ease despite his situation. When Steve steps back, he rattles the shackles. “Gonna lock me up and throw away the key, my lovely Commodore?”

Steve gives him a dry look. “We’re going to put you in that cell, yes. There will be a trial.”

“Mm, looking forward to it. Piracy trials always go so well for the pirate,” Tony says, craning his head to look around the room. He kicks at the straw covering the concrete. “Well, I’ve escaped better prisons.”

“You won’t escape this one.”

Tony cocks his head to meet Steve’s eyes. “Would you like to place a wager on that? I’m sure your friend here has heard some very interesting stories about the places I’ve busted out of.”

Steve doesn’t answer, instead walking him to the cell and indicating for him to step inside. When Tony just stands there, Steve gives him a light shove. That gets him inside, mock-offended as Steve closes the cell behind him.

“You’ll come back and visit, won’t you,” Tony asks, leaning up against the bars. “Hmm? My lovely Commodore?”

His fingers reach through to brush Steve’s wrist. It’s like a cattle brand, that careful pressure, and Tony’s smirking when Steve steps back.

“Be seeing you,” Tony calls as they walk out of the chambers, and Thor doesn’t even wait until the door’s swinging shut behind them before turning to Steve, a grin in his voice.

“ _My lovely Commodore_?”

“Shuddup,” Steve says, and Thor’s laugh echoes off the stone walls.

 

 

 

 

 

Steve tells himself he’s just giving the cook a break when he brings the prisoners their food. Even he admits not one of his best excuses.

He slots bowls of soup into the cells, resolutely not looking up into the last cell until Tony’s hands close around his bowl. When he chances a look upwards, Tony is looking at him with an expression that Steve doesn’t know how to categorize.

“Hello,” Tony says.

Steve nods curtly. “Hello,” he answers, and then stands there, stiff and awkward. What else did he mean to do? He expected Tony to carry the conversation, or even start one, surely. Why, though, he doesn’t know- Steve’s never particularly wanted any more conversation with prisoners than the talks he was forced to have with them.

When Tony does nothing but stare, eyes narrowed, Steve gives another nod and turns to leave, teeth gritted. Why did he come down in the first place, he has a hundred other things to do-

“Do the Commodores in this city usually take time out of their day to come and feed prisoners? Are you that short of staff? Because I’m sure there are some street urchins who would love to help out, provided they’re given the right kind of compensation.”

Steve has to swallow a smile before he turns back to face him. “I asked around,” he says.

“Did you now? About how impossibly handsome I am, I assume.”

“Not quite. They say you’ve only been here a week.”

“So?”

“So I didn’t think pirates were the sort to get in the business of feeding children they only met days beforehand.”

Tony’s mouth twists. “You’ve met a lot of pirates, then?”

“Here and there.”

“Well. I must be one of a kind, then.”

“Now that I don’t doubt.”

Tony lets out a surprised laugh, a quiet thing that makes Steve’s blood sing as it travels through his system.

It’s then that Steve notices, again, the blue light that he thought he had imagined: peeking out from the collar of Tony’s shirt, where it had ridden down on the laugh. On closer inspection, it looks- it looks like it’s  _in_  Tony’s chest, jutting out from just above his ribs.

He’s frowning, he must be, because Tony’s smile shrinks and he follows Steve’s gaze just in time for Steve to not look away in time.

“Sorry,” Steve says as Tony jerks his shirt back into place. “I didn’t-”

“Thank you,” Tony says, and this time his smile is flimsy. “For not going after the kids.”

Steve swallows. “I tend not to chase kids down. God knows how many apples I’ve had to steal, over the years.”

That gets him a questioning look, and before Tony can open his mouth again, Steve says, “I wasn’t always a Commodore, To- Captain Stark.”

Tony nods slowly, considering. “I suppose you weren’t. Do you have a first name, Commodore?”

“I do.”

“What is it, pray tell?”

“It’s Steve.”

“Steve,” Tony repeats. “Strong, handsome name. It suits you. Especially the handsome part.”

Steve doesn’t know what he should reply to that- he’s sure he should probably do anything but huff and duck his head, but it’s what happens. He’s saved from having to come up with a reply when their heads both perk up at the sound of distant canon fire.

“Stay there,” Steve tells Tony, who raises his shackled hands.

He thinks Tony says something like _, where would I go,_  but it’s drowned out by the rising sound of yelling and canon blasts.

 

 

 

 

 

 _Where, indeed,_  Steve thinks groggily, not one hour later, when he finds himself concussed with a sword to his throat.

It’s been an eventful hour, though quite blurry now that Steve tries to think back on it: full of swordfights and muskets and chases, all culminating into Steve turning a corner at the docks and running straight into Tony, who stared at him for a second before pulling his back against Tony’s front and pressing the side of a sword against Steve’s neck.

There are people approaching, Thor and Maria and Brock Rumlow, all holding guns, all going still when the sword touches Steve’s skin.

“One step more and the Commodore dies,” Tony says, and Steve thinks,  _ah_.

The wood creaks underneath their feet, and Steve’s head swims. He blinks blood out of his eyes- he definitely hit his head on something, probably when he fell over while running here, and his vision keeps swooping in a way that makes it a lot harder to fight.

“Hey, keep your feet on the dock,” Maria barks.

 _Docks,_  Steve thinks hazily.  _We’re on the docks?_

The cannon fire does seem closer, he realizes. And that sound, the scraping one, is the sea, the tang of salt cloying in his nose.

Tony steps backwards and Steve is forced with him. He’s calculating where he’s going to have to ram his elbow into Tony’s stomach to distract him long enough to get his sword away when a cannon fires loud enough to make everyone flinch.

Distantly, he hears Thor yell, feels the ground splinter close to them, enough that the wooden panels under their feet start to sag. When they fall, Steve smacks his head again, hard enough that he has to stay still so he doesn’t vomit.

Then they hit the ocean, and throwing up is the least of Steve’s worries.

Things get even more hazy after that- Steve is underwater and then he isn’t, losing time in between, he’s throwing up seawater and Tony’s voice is in his ear, saying his name.

He’s vaguely aware of being dragged onto more wooden panels, though these ones are swaying in a way that wood usually doesn’t.

Tony’s saying, “Were you TRYING TO HIT ME, Rhodey, really, were you actually TRYING,” and someone’s answering but Steve doesn’t hear them as unconsciousness drags him back under.

 

 

 

 

 

They wake Steve up every two hours, and during one of these times, Tony says, “I’m sorry.”

“F’r what,” Steve says. Talking is like swimming through mud with one arm tied behind his back.

“I wanted to take you back to shore,” Tony tells him. From down here on the bed, it looks like Tony has a halo, thanks to the lamplight. “But we couldn’t, or they’d sink the ship.”

“Pirate ship,” Steve manages. His eyes keep falling closed without him letting them.

Tony laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “Pirate ship.”

He makes Steve drink some water, then Steve is lapsing back into sleep. He thinks he hears Tony say,  _sleep well, my lovely Commodore,_  but he thinks he might just be delirious.

 

 

 

 

 

The next time Steve wakes up, he finds himself face to face with a compass that’s hanging off of Tony’s belt.

Steve watches it dangle as Tony scribbles something down in a journal, pacing the room as he does. From time to time, he mutters, and his frown becomes more pronounced, but Steve can’t hear what he’s saying.

“We confiscated that,” Steve says, and Tony startles. He follows Steve’s pointing finger to the compass, then grins.

“Yeah. I got it back.”

“While you were escaping?”

“While I was escaping,” Tony agrees.

Steve nods, accepts water when Tony holds out a glass. He sips at it, and doesn’t taste anything other than water. Like, say, poison. “Dunno how you did that. We have some of the best cells in the state.”

“Well, I’m the best pirate in the world,” Tony says. “Best pirate trumps best cells.”

Steve snorts. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“What, that you have the best cells?”

“That you’re the best pirate,” Steve counters. “Thor may have heard of you, but I sure haven’t.”

“So there are pirates that are more famous than me,” Tony says. “Fame doesn’t mean they’re good.”

“They’re pirates,” Steve says. “Pirates aren’t good, by principle.”

He meets Tony’s gaze as he says it, and Tony’s smile ticks before settling back to its usual timber. “Yeah. Well,” Tony says, and doesn’t continue.

Steve remembers, fleetingly, Tony’s soft look at a child as he gave him an extra apple.

 

 

 

 

 

Being kept prisoner on a pirate ship is less grating than Steve expects it to be.

For one, they don’t keep him in the cells. Instead, they let him roam free. They keep his hands tied for a while, letting him sit on the deck, but that only lasts until a pirate named Clint points out that “We’re in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere and if you try to escape there’s fuck-knows how many miles of ocean to cover.”

For another, they’re letting him off at the next stop. This, Steve really didn’t expect.

“We can’t let you off back at your port,” Tony explains, sounding apologetic, when Steve wakes up and stays awake. “But we can let you off at Evangeline Island and you can catch a ride there. Do you have any money for the passage?”

Steve looks at him blankly. “No, oddly enough I didn’t pack the necessities for getting kidnapped by pirates.”

“Fair enough,” Tony says. Then he fiddles with a bag hooked onto his belt, unhooks it and hands it to Steve. “There. Good travel, even, they won’t shove you in with the mice.”

Steve opens the bag, stares at the contents. It’s enough to get him back to his port three times over. “Thank… you,” he says.

“No problem,” Tony says, shrugging. “My fault you got here in the first place.”

It’s not until that night, when Steve is settling down to bed, when he realizes Tony could’ve let him go when they fell into the ocean. He didn’t need Steve at that point, he was getting away, which was why he grabbed Steve in the first place.

He could’ve let Steve drown. Why didn’t he?

Steve thinks about this until he falls into a fitful sleep. He dreams of being tossed through stormy seas where at the last second, Tony’s arms close around him and drag him upwards.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a three-day journey to Evangeline Island, and Steve- well, he likes the crew more than he should like a band of pirates. He grew up in a neighbourhood filled with people like these, what with living in the poor part of town.

The thing is, Steve could see himself being friends with these people. He thinks they’d get along well with Thor.

“So where’re you headed,” Steve asks Natasha as they’re tying the rigging.

Natasha glances over at him. When he talks, it’s down at the rope. “Me, or the ship?”

“Both.”

“I go where the ship goes,” she answers. “Except when I don’t.”

“Good answer.”

“Thank you. As for the ship, we don’t know.”

“Why not?”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. You could report back to your people when you get back to your city. Then when we dock, surprise, a bunch of official-types are arresting us.”

He keeps silent. He wants to say he wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know for sure.

She smiles. “Good answer, Steve.”

 

 

 

 

“Why don’t you have a heading,” Steve asks Tony.

Tony continues eating soup, eyes on the bowl. “Even if we did, we wouldn’t start blabbing about it to a Commodore.”

“Even a lovely one?”

Tony looks up at that, meeting his eyes with a questioning look. “Even one as lovely as you,” he allows, gaze hot on Steve’s.

Steve feels his cheeks heat, and hastily looks down at his soup as he eats another spoonful. “Fair ‘nuff. I’d do the same, in your position.”

Tony’s quiet for a long time, until Steve thinks they’ve dropped the conversation. Then he says, “So I might be a little bit cursed.”

“Truly,” Steve says after a moment, when Tony doesn’t elaborate.

A nod. “Truly. I offended a sea-witch, got cursed for my troubles.” He taps at his chest, and Steve looks down to see the blue light, only just visible below his neckline.

“Oh.” Steve’s spoon scrapes the bowl, quiet as he can. He guesses this isn’t the moment for loud noises, only soft ones. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, you didn’t offend her,” Tony shrugs. “’S why we don’t have a heading.”

“Is that the curse? Never having a heading?”

“Not exactly.” Tony looks up, out into the night sky, up at the moon. “It’s, uh. I have to achieve my heart’s desire in the next five years. Four, now.”

“Or?”

Tony fixes him with a droll look. “Guess,” he says.

“…Oh.” Steve watches Tony as he goes back to his soup. He scales a deep breath. “So that’s- I mean, what does that have to do with not having a heading?”

“Do you remember my compass?”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, the broken one?”

“It’s not broken.”

“Sure seemed like it. It’d only point at you.”

Tony stops talking for the second time in the conversation, long enough that Steve says, “Tony?”

It’s the first time he’s said Tony’s name, he realizes as Tony blinks hard and resumes scraping at his bowl with his spoon.

“Tony,” Steve repeats. It sounds- new, maybe. It sounds like  _something_ , though Steve doesn’t know what.

“Never mind,” Tony tells him. “It’s- yeah, no, nevermind.”

Steve says, “Okay,” and isn’t too surprised when Tony hardly talks for the rest of the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re several hours away from Evangeline Island when a shout goes up.

“MAN OVERBOARD!”

Steve’s been thumbing absently at the mast, and his hand tightens around it when this happens. He swears under his breath, bringing his finger to his mouth to tease out a splinter, looking around.

The crew have started to mill to the port side, and Steve follows them, craning his head. “Someone fell off the ship?”

Natasha shakes her head, lips pursed.

It takes a second for it to click, as Steve spots the black man in the water a dozen feet away, lying motionless on what looks like a broken-off door. “Christ. How long do you think he’s been in the water? Is he even alive?”

“We’ll soon find out,” Natasha says, and leans over the railing. “HEY. HEY, YOU! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

There’s no motion from the man as the waves lap at his leg, which is dangling off the wood.

Natasha sighs, looks over her shoulder. “Potts, start lowering the lifeboat. C’mon, Steve, you look like you’re itching to put those muscles to use.”

He follows Natasha, having to jump a few meters into the lifeboat as it’s being lowered. As he’s jumping, he hears Tony say, “What’s happening,” and is crouching in the lifeboat before he looks up.

Tony’s leaning over the side, head half-tilted as Rhodey explains, but his eyes are on Steve, the sun framing his head so Steve has to squint to meet his gaze.

It doesn’t take long to row close enough to get to the man, and Natasha puts her oar down to feel at the man’s throat. “He’s alive. Barely. Here, grab an arm.”

Steve does, and tries not to be surprised when Natasha hauls the man into the boat with as much force as Steve. He tries to casually glance at her arms to gauge how much muscle she’s hiding under those sleeves, but then he looks down at the man’s face and all other thoughts get pushed out of his mind.

“Christ,” he says again, softer this time, hardly a breath. He touches the man’s jacket, smooths some of the damp dirt out of it- a military uniform, just like his.

Natasha says, “Steve?”

“I know this man.” Steve swallows. “He’s a friend of mine. Sam Wilson. He’s supposed to be- he’s- what’s he doing out here?”

Natasha looks down into the man’s face, eyebrows creasing. “He’s a commodore?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we trained together.” Steve puts a hand on his forehead: he’s fever-hot. “Even if he floated for a few days- he’s not supposed to be anywhere near here.”

“Take an oar,” Natasha says after a pause, and Steve does.

 

 

 

 

 

They press salted ice to whatever skin they can get to after they get him into the cabins, out of the sun. It doesn’t get him alert, but it does get him mumbling and turning his head away from the shock of cold.

“Sam,” Steve says, after they manage to trickle some water down his throat. “It’s Commodore Rogers. Steve. Can you hear me? How did this happen?”

Sam moans, a low, confused noise. After more water, his eyes crack open. “…Steve,” he manages, slurring it, eyes tracking slowly before landing on Steve’s face.

Steve grips his arm. “It’s me.”

Sam blinks, slow, and then his entire face creases. He gropes for Steve’s shirt, trying to clutch it and failing. “Steve, we gotta- we gotta get off the ship, they’re- they’re HYDRA, gonna put us in the water if we- if we don’t-”

“Hey, calm down, you gotta drink more water, you have heatstroke.”

Sam keeps fumbling at him, eyes unclear but urgent. “What- what ship are we on. What ship are we-”

He stops when he sees Tony, urgency fading into a frown. “’Lo,” he says.

“Hi,” Tony replies. “Good to see you, Commodore Wilson.”

“…’Lo,” Sam repeats. He looks hazily between Steve and Tony. “We- catch you?”

Steve turns to Tony. “You two know each other?”

“We’ve met,” Tony says, bending down to press a wet rag to Sam’s forehead. “You ran into HYDRA? Did they take your ship? Are there more of your people in the water-”

He trails off at Sam’s frantic head-shaking. “Sam, was it? What happened.”

Sam wets his cracked lips. “Our- superiors. Most of them, they’re- it’s HYDRA. Steve.  _They’re_  HYDRA. Peirce, he wanted- he asked me if I wanted in on something, and I said no, no way in hell, not- not that. ‘N he put me over the side of the ship, his whole crew, they’re all in on it-”

“Sam. Sam,” Steve says, squeezing Sam’s arm, the one that has a hand fisted in his shirt collar. “You were out on the water for a long time, you’re delirious.”

“No, Steve, y’ gotta believe me,” Sam says. “You need to tell everyone. They have- shit, Steve, they have so many plans, we gotta- we gotta get everyone we can trust and stop them, they’re gonna kill the king-”

It takes a few minutes for them to convince Sam to let them drip more water in his mouth, and then a few minutes more for Sam to slump back into a fevered sleep, and by that time he’s divulged more than a few key details about what he learned about HYDRA’s plans.

“He’s delirious,” Steve says as silence falls over the cabin.

Around him, the crew trade looks. Steve sighs.

“HYDRA hasn’t infiltrated the government,” he says. “I’d know.”

“Right,” Tony says. “I’m sure that’s the sort of thing they’d tell the town crier. Really get the word around.”

“Oh, sorry, aren’t you supposed to be HYDRA?” It’s out of Steve’s mouth before he can reign it in, and he regrets it when everyone’s faces go tight.

“Shockingly, not every pirate wants the world under their heel,” Tony says, with a smile that looks as dry as Sam’s throat. He starts to step back, towards the door. “Well, I’ll just get the ship prepared to pull into Evangeline Island. I assume you’ll be taking Commodore Wilson with you?”

Steve stares at him, jaw locking as a hundred little things play through his mind: Peirce; his warm handshake and his cold smile, the way he made Steve uneasy in a way he could never explain, though everyone agreed when he voiced it. Whispers of corruption in the ranks going back long before Steve ever got promoted to Commodore. Deaths, one after the other, and the rumours of them being too convenient to be accidents.

“Pass by it,” Steve says, and watches Tony’s steps halt. “I want to figure this out first. If Sam- if it really is just the sunstroke, you can always let us off on at the next port.”

Tony looks over his shoulder at Steve. His gaze drops down to Sam, but then they’re flicking back up. “Of course,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 

Steve doesn’t know if he’s relieved when he learns the nearest port after Evangeline Island is over two weeks away.

He  _is_  relieved, however, when he finds a notepad and some charcoal hidden in the depths of a cabin. When he isn’t helping out on the ship, he takes to sitting out on the deck and sketching. Seagulls, mostly, since he can never seem to get a hang of them and there are always some around the ship.

He draws the crew, and the ship, and very pointedly doesn’t draw Tony because he’s been down this path before and knows how it’ll end: with Tony scrawled on every bit of paper he can get his hands on. It’s hard to find a place to hide on a ship, so Steve doesn’t think he’d do a good job of avoiding people if he started doing that and someone found his Tony-drawings.

So he stops whenever he catches himself distractedly sketching the lines of Tony’s face, the shape of his eyes and hands, the curves of his legs and backside. Instead, he draws seagulls. So many seagulls.

He’s outlining what must be his hundredth seagull when he hears the telltale creak of wooden panels next to him, and glances up to see the very face he’s trying not to sketch. “Hello, Captain Stark.”

Tony sighs as he sits down on a crate next to him. “Remember that time you called me Tony?”

“Yes.”

“Keep doing that.”

“Okay. Tony,” Steve adds.

Tony’s mouth tugs upwards.

“Tony,” Steve repeats.

“My lovely Commodore?”

“What  _is_  your heart’s desire? If I can ask.”

The smile fades. Tony’s fingers close around the compass hanging from his belt, so absentmindedly that Steve wonders if Tony knows he’s doing it.

“Sorry,” Steve starts, but Tony waves the apology away.

“I was expecting you to ask.”

“You said you don’t have a heading,” Steve says. “Is that because it keeps moving around, or-”

“I don’t know what it is,” Tony cuts him off. When he smiles this time, it’s brittle. “My heart’s desire. Don’t know it. That’s why-”

He stops, looking sideways at Steve like he only just remembered something important. His adam’s apple bobs, and Steve files it away for drawings he isn’t going to do.

“Why what?”

“Why, uh.” Tony makes a face, tugs at his captain’s hat. “Actually, I changed my mind. I don’t want to discuss this.”

Steve nods. His fingers thread together, resting on top of his notebook. “Okay. I was just asking because- well, you need to get it within four years, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t that be-” Steve twists his fingers. “Shouldn’t it be your first priority, finding out what it is, at least?”

Tony barks a laugh. His wrists rest easily on his knees, and Steve wants to paint them across cathedrals. “If everyone could figure out their heart’s desire so easily, everyone’d be on a quest across the seven seas.”

“True.”

“What’s yours?” Tony says it without looking at him, so Steve turns his head away, too, looking down at his hands.

“My heart’s desire?” Steve’s thumb smooths over the knuckles of his right hand, tacky with sea-salt and charcoal. For some reason, all he can think of is  _this_ ,  _right here, the ocean stretching out all around us, your knee pressing into mine._

“I wouldn’t know,” he says finally. “I want what everyone does, I suppose.”

When he chances a look over at Tony, Tony is staring at him with an odd expression, like he doesn’t know what to make of him.

“Right,” Tony says. Then he coughs and the expression is gone, as fleeting as it came. He stands, and a wave of disappointment sweeps through Steve before Tony asks, “I assume they taught you how to handle a sword, Steve?”

“They did,” Steve says.

“Can you fight well?”

“Quite well, yes.”

Tony rests a hand on the sword at his own belt. “I shall believe it when I see it, Commodore.”

“Am I no longer lovely?”

Steve is surprised it made it out of his mouth, but Tony seems pleased. Surprised, and Steve thinks he sees his mouth twitch in a way that isn’t entirely happy, but pleased all the same.

“You are eternally lovely, I’m sure,” Tony says. It’s softer than Steve expects, probably softer than Tony expected, judging from the look that flits across his face. He coughs again, pulls out his sword. “Barton! Hand Steve your sword.”

Clint starts complaining, which gets Tony complaining right back at him, and Steve watches and grins.

Compared with the raids at sea, this is the most fun he’s ever had on a pirate ship. More accurately, it’s the most fun Steve’s had in a very long time.

 

 

 

 

 

Sam gets more coherent as the days pass, and eventually he’s walking about, helping with the ship and insisting he doesn’t need to go lie down no matter how much Steve and the others tell him to.

By the time he can sit up on his own, he asks for Steve, and tells him about HYDRA’s plans. About the ship headed right now to kill the king, about their plans to exterminate everyone they deem ‘worthless,’ or ‘in their way,’ which happens to be most of the known population.

“You must believe me,” Sam says. “Steve. You know me, you’re one of my oldest friends. You know I wouldn’t say this unless I truly believed it.”

“I know,” Steve says. “I know, Sam.”

Sam eyes him. “So you believe me?”

“I… do not want to,” Steve admits. “It’s. A lot to take on.”

Sam laughs, and it’s hollow.

“Why did they ask you to help?”

Sam snorts. “Lord knows.”

“Seems like a featherheaded thing to do.”

“Let us hope they continue to be as featherheaded,” Sam says. He winces down a cup of water when Steve pushes it into his hand. “So. I did not expect to wake up to find I’ve been rescued by pirates.”

“They’re good people,” Steve says, and then hesitates.

Sam sees it. “Steve.”

“Mm.”

“You know how me and Stark met?”

“No, he didn’t tell me.”

“I caught him stealing a king’s ransom worth of gold from Peirce’s private stores. We scrapped, but he overpowered me. I followed him, I found he was only keeping enough to feed his crew and repair his ship. He gave the rest to the villagers that were low on rations. A lifetime’s worth of gold, for them. Enough to feed their children, and their children’s children.”

Steve is less than surprised, but it still sends a warm glow through him, a satisfaction of knowing what he had been trying to convince himself ever since he saw Tony handing out apples. “What did you do?”

“What, to Stark?” Sam grins. “I was tragically overpowered once again when he realized I was watching him. Sly fella, that Captain Stark.”

“He is.”

Sam hums into his cup as he takes another sip. Lowering it, he says, “What are the rest of the crew like?”

“Remarkably trustworthy for a bunch of pirates.”

Sam nudges his knee with the back of his hand. “I haven’t seen much, but from what I HAVE seen, you fit in too well on a pirate ship, Rogers.”

Steve rubs the back of his neck. “Aw, you’ve seen where I grew up, I’m sure most pirates come from the same kinda place. Wasn’t exactly the area that raises Commodores.”

“And yet,” Sam says, waving a hand towards Steve. “Though, you don’t look much like one, now.”

Steve picks at the clothes that the crew have given to him- most of them are either too small or too big and they’re all tattered, but he’s coped in worse. “I couldn’t wear my uniform the whole journey, could I, Wilson?”

“We’ve done it before.”

“And we’ll do it again.”

Sam chuckles. It lasts a second or two before his face turns grave. “Steve.”

“I know,” Steve says before Sam can voice it. “I’ve already discussed it with T- with Captain Stark. We’re heading to the king now.”

Sam lets his head hit the pillow, or, rather, the bunch of rags stuffed in a makeshift pillowcase. “Do we know who we can trust?”

“Not very many of us, that’s for sure. HYDRA, they’re- I’m sure they have many people in our ranks. We do not know who is with them.”

“So we don’t know if we should trust our countrymen, but we ride on a ship with a crew of pirates to rescue the king?”

“Looks that way.”

“This is not how I expected this voyage to go when I stepped off of the docks in June,” Sam says, and Steve laughs until Sam joins in and starts coughing.

 

 

 

 

 

Later, when Steve is attempting to draw Clint in his hammock and failing quite miserably, Tony comes to him again.

“You are very good at that,” Tony remarks, leaning over to look at Steve’s pages.

Steve tries not to shiver at the feel of Tony’s breath on his neck. “Thank you. I once dreamed of traveling the world as an artist.”

Tony brightens as he sits down next to him. “Yes? A fine dream.”

“I certainly thought so.”

“What happened to it? The dream.”

“Lack of money.” Steve shrugs. “The military seemed the wise second choice. I always liked giving people their justice.”

Tony hums. “Justice isn’t the usual reason why people become powerful.”

“I was never interested in becoming powerful,” Steve says. “Just helpful. I only ever wanted to help.”

This gets Tony looking at him strangely again, part-sad and part-confused and possibly part-happy.

“What about you,” Steve asks. “What did Captain Stark want to do?”

Tony lets out a laugh, throwing his head back to do it. “Oh, I always wanted to be a pirate captain, I assure you, Steve. It was an idle dream, but it was always there. Took me quite a while to get around to doing it, mind you.”

“Indeed? What kept you busy before then?”

Tony blows out a breath. “I was a very rich inventor.”

Steve waits for the punchline. “Truly,” he says eventually.

“Truly.”

“Well.” Steve scratches his chin, tries to find something to say. “You certainly act like you have money,” he decides on finally.

“And what do you mean by that,” Tony asks in a way that means he already knows the answer.

Steve says it anyway. “It’s in the way you move, the way you speak. Though, most rich folks I’ve met are less than comfortable spending so long in the same clothes, letting the sweat dry on their bodies day after day, eating gruel and rations.”

“It is better than the alternative.”

“Building weapons?”

Tony nods curtly, his face clouding over. Steve’s tongue burns with questions, hot and searing, like coals pressing into his cheeks.

“What caused you to leave,” he settles on, keeping it quiet, undemanding.

Tony shrugs like his shoulders are stacked with lead. “I do not wish to speak of it,” he says. “But- later, perhaps.”

“Anytime,” Steve says.

Tony nods again, then pauses. “I built the cannons in this ship.”

“They’re good cannons,” Steve says after it doesn’t seem like Tony is going to say anything else.

“Of course they are,” Tony says. “I built them.”

He leans back against the cabins, cocks his head back to look up at the sky. “Are you nervous? About stopping HYDRA?”

“More impatient than nervous.”

“Brave one,” Tony murmurs. He looks over at Steve, his hair falling in his eyes as he does so. “You’re a very good man, Steve Rogers.”

“Back at you,” Steve says, and pretends not to notice it when Tony startles at his reply.

 

 

 

 

 

The good news is that they run into Peirce’s ship just as they’re about to port.

The bad news is that while they’re distracted fighting off his crew, Peirce manages to escape to the docks and then into the city, and by the time they notice he’s no longer on the ship, he’s long gone.

“Why is he killing the king again,” Clint asks as he wheezes his way through the streets. “Isn’t the king part of it?”

Steve says, “What? No, the king isn’t HYDRA, why would you think that?”

“No-one tells me anything,” Clint says, and then has to stop and rest against the side of a building until Steve sighs and hoists him onto his shoulders.

The palace guards, understandably, aren’t about to let what looks like a horde of commoners into the castle, even when Steve and Sam explain that they are military officials who have both lost their badges in the ocean at one point or another and are here to warn the king about HYDRA planning to kill him.

 

 

 

 

_In retrospect,_  Steve thinks as they haul him down to the cells, _it was not a good plan to try punching our way in, but it was the only plan at the time_.

Even when he explains this to the rest of them, it still gets him dirty looks. “You started fighting, too,” Steve points out.

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re idiots,” Rhodey says, and sighs.

“We got into the palace,” Steve tries.

“Very true,” Tony says. “Right underneath it. NOW all we need to do is make it out of the cells and up to wherever the king is. Easy.” He turns his head to the guard currently holding Tony’s shackles. “Excuse me, are you entirely positive you can’t carry a message to the king? It’s very urgent. Life or death.”

The guard glares.

“We aren’t spies,” Tony says.

“Or crazy,” Sam adds.

“Or crazy,” Tony agrees. “Pretty please?”

The guards stop making eye contact with them after that, and throw them into the cells more roughly than they perhaps should.

 

 

 

 

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the best at breaking out of cells,” Natasha asks Tony after the guards go to stand outside.

Tony grunts. “I am. However, I’ve never had to break out of palace-grade cells. This could be interesting.”

“How’d you break out of our cells,” Steve asks.

“Leverage,” Tony says distractedly. “Everyone shush, I need to think.”

 

 

 

 

Even though he was watching for the entirety of the few hours, Steve still doesn’t know how Tony managed to build a tiny bomb out of the contents of what everyone had in their pockets.

However Tony did it, it’s enough to blow the lock open, and they manage to take out the several guards that come charging in soon after.

“This is a very bad plan,” Tony says as they’re climbing the stairs, leaving a considerable amount of dirt on them in their wake. “How did I get dragged into this again?”

“You didn’t let me drown,” Steve tells him. “It may have been all downhill from there.”

“Right,” Tony says.

They manage to get lost far too many times, since a palace is a very big place, and consequently they run into several more guards.

By the time they finally burst into the main dining room to find Peirce and the King eating dinner at opposite sides of a long table, Steve’s knuckles are all but skinned from punching people out.

As the others take care of the guards in the room, he levels a shotgun, taken off one of the first guards that came in after Tony got them out of the cell, at Peirce’s head.

“Your majesty, my name is Commodore Sam Wilson, and this man is a traitor,” Sam says to the king. “He has come to take your life and cause chaos throughout the world. He is the leader of HYDRA.”

“Commodore… Wilson,” the king repeats after a short, shocked silence. “I remember you.”

Sam starts to say something, but only gets as far as, “I,” before Peirce is whipping a sword out and throwing it straight at the king. He swears when it only sticks through his shoulder, making the King bellow and stumble backwards.

Steve is getting ready to shoot Peirce between the eyes when Peirce’s hand flashes into his jacket, coming out with a bright blue orb that he holds up like he’s presenting something.

Behind him, Steve hears Tony make a small, gutted noise, and it’s enough to still Steve’s finger on the trigger.

“What is that,” he demands.

“You shall find out soon enough,” Peirce says. “Now let me walk out of here.”

“What is it,” Steve repeats.

Peirce’s jaw shifts as he glances over at the king, dissatisfaction clear in his tone as he watches blood seep from the non-fatal wound. “Heard you lot were loyal to your Captain.”

“Depends on the day,” Rhodey says, but his eyes are fierce as he looks towards Tony, who is going pale.

“I procured a back-up,” Peirce says. “On the off chance you were foolish enough to try to stop me here, too. So many odd people in the city, especially one as big as this one. Circus freaks. Fortune-tellers. Witches,” he says, and Steve listens to Tony begin to gasp and gets an inkling.

“What’s it doing to him,” he snarls. “Tell me!”

“Quickening the inevitable,” Peirce says. “You honestly think I wouldn’t find out every weakness you had after you robbed me, Stark?”

“Fuck- you,” Tony chokes out.

Peirce smiles coldly. “Let me walk out of here, and perhaps you can have time to figure out how to save your beloved Captain.”

“Give it to me.”

A laugh. “Breaking it will do nothing for him now.”

“Will it stop its effects if you leave with it?”

Peirce’s mouth twitches.

Steve’s fingers stain with gunpowder as he shoots Peirce in the head.

He doesn’t watch the body fall to the carpet, instead says, “Potts, try breaking it anyway, Barton, go tend to the king,” as he turns around just in time to see Tony crumple to his knees.

He gets down beside him, taking in the white pallor of his skin, the rapid gasp of his breath. “What’s happening?”

“What… do you think,” Tony rasps. His lips are turning blue, slowly but surely. He fumbles with Steve’s hand. “Steve- I think- I think you-”

“Curses don’t- how did Peirce get his hands on that,” Steve says as panic puts his hands over Tony’s. “How did he do this, how do we stop this, you had four years left, you had four  _years_ -”

Tony’s breath rattles as he tries to form words.

Steve watches in mute horror as black starts to work its way up his veins, starting from the blue in his chest. Black begins twisting along his arms, up his neck, creeping along his cheeks, his eyelids. His eyes start to roll up under them, and his hands drop out of Steve’s.

“No,” Steve hears himself say. “No, Tony, come on.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, maybe Sam’s, and Steve shakes it off so he can grab Tony’s shoulders. He looks around desperately. “You all know more about the curse than I do, what can we- what can we do?”

Natasha’s face is blank, but her hands shake ever so slightly as she gets down beside him. “Try the compass.”

“Wh- the compass,” Steve says. “Why?”

She frowns at him. “He didn’t tell you what it did?”

“It- points to people?”

She looks at him for a moment, then bends to untie the compass from his belt. She forces it into Tony’s hand and clicks it open.

The arrow is a blur before it starts to slow, whirling until it settles straight at Steve. Around him, the crew start to murmur.

“It points at people,” Steve repeats, confused, and looks up to see Natasha’s eyebrows raised as she stares down at the compass lying in Tony’s loose hand.

“Huh,” she says. She wets her lips. “Steve.”

“Yes?”

“We need you to kiss Tony.”

Steve only has to examine her stern, serious face before he’s leaning over Tony and kissing him hard, lips mashing together unpleasantly, Tony’s mouth slack under his. It’s not- well, it’s not how he imagined their first kiss, when he allowed himself to imagine such things.

“Did it work,” he asks when he pulls back. His eyes rove over Tony’s face, tiny, waning puffs of breath coming from his mouth, the black still slow-working its way through Tony’s veins. “Shit.”

He looks over at Natasha, who has her lips pursed. It’s her steely gaze down at the compass that does it- “The compass points to the heart’s desire.”

Natasha stays silent. Then: “Tell him you love him,” calls Pepper, still standing in the remains of the orb that she crushed under her foot. Her face is almost as pale as Tony’s, and her mouth is wobbling. “He’s- Steve, please do it. And say it like you mean it.”

 _I do_ , Steve thinks, feeling useless and confused and oddly elated-  _he’s Tony’s heart’s desire_ \- and puts his hands over Tony’s chest like he could somehow scoop the curse out. If he could, he’d do it with his bare hands. He’s burn his skin badly enough so he’d never draw again, and he’d do it happily if he could keep Tony in the land of the living.

He leans in again, pressing their foreheads together. It’s quick, because time is far from being on their side, but it’s reverent and the truest thing Steve’s ever uttered in all his 29 years.

“I love you, Tony. I love you so much and I’d be honoured if you’d let me spend my life proving it to you. I think I loved you ever since I saw your hand touch that crate of apples, even before I saw you giving it to those kids. I think there’s something in my bones that loves you, something that’s been searching for you ever since I blinked into existence. I think I’ve been looking for you my whole life and I know that I love you and I want us to take on the seas together.”

He holds his breath the same time Tony’s stops. For a horrible second, his chest cinches, he’s failed, he didn’t do it well enough, or maybe he did it the wrong way-

But then Tony jerks upwards, gasping, eyes coming open. The black begins to fade from his skin until there’s nothing to show it was ever there.

Tony sits up shakily, staring at Steve before his hands move down to touch his own chest. He lets out a small, watery laugh when he looks down at it, presses his open palm to the middle of it where bright blue has rested inside it for the past year.

“You,” Tony starts, and then can’t continue, mouth making to shape words and then never going through with it, only air coming out.

“Me,” Steve says.

Tony kisses him and this time it’s wonderful, solid pressure and soft lips, Tony’s hands digging into his hair.

They kiss until Clint says, “Um, you guys do know that the king is still bleeding onto a very expensive carpet, yes,” and then have to jerk apart and deal with other things for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).


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